Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion - Recent Threads

English and Spanish bilingual website?

Ashleigh Arrington — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 19:33:21 GMT

Hi everyone - we're looking to make our entire website bilingual in English and Spanish, has anyone done this before?

Ideally there is a single button/toggle that presents the page in each language (without using GoogleTranslate). I'm inspired by the website from our neighbors at Gala Hispanic Theatre but they don't use Tessitura.

It's not currently a TNEW functionality so I've seen this as a suggestion on the Ideas board, but I wanted to see if anyone had any successful workarounds? Do you all have any solutions for a bilingual website?

For our current Spanish offerings we include a translation of the content on the TNEW page, but we're interested in EVERYTHING being properly translated across the entire website. Our website developers can handle some of the static content, but we're struggling to figure out a solution for the TNEW side of things.

Let me know if you've found any workarounds or how you've done something like this on your website!

Thanks!

- Ashleigh

RE: English and Spanish bilingual website?

Rachael Downs — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 15:23:10 GMT

Hi Ashleigh,

I don't have any suggestions, but I'm curious about the translation of the TNEW content you currently provide. Can you share more about that? We're in discussions about the same thing, and are hoping to be able to implement an accessibility component to our TNEW site in the interim.

Thank you!

RE: Burnout Log

Jennifer Almgreen — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 15:09:37 GMT

Thanks Shelly! Yes I will see you there.

Burnout Log

Jennifer Almgreen — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:53:14 GMT

Sorry to make this a separate post but I'm hoping this will stand out. I was combing through the Tessitura Network forums a few weeks ago and saw in a thread someone reference creating what they called a "Burnout Log" for their front of house staff. I believe in particular it was for museum staff? It had started some research on my end and I'm hoping to connect with the person who had shared those details but cannot find the thread where it was posted. If this sounds like something you posted, or that your organization does let me know and I'd love to check in directly to ask some questions about your process.

Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

shenette Swann — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:55:03 GMT

Good friends! Hello! I manage guest engagement for Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’m curious to hear from others. In what ways do your organizations practice the prevention of burnout and provide a greater sense of value for all teammates, but specifically for those in the direct line of fire during daily operations. I personally want to ensure that my hourly employees feel seen, valued and heard and I’d love to know all of the ways that we all go about doing this. Over the last year, I’ve been leading incredibly effective empathetic team talks called Clumsy conversations. These talks have been powerful so much that I’ve been doing them for other organizations and conferences. In these chats we’ve covered toxic positivity and the expectations that we place on hourly part time teammates to perform with excellence, deal with difficult guest interactions, and keep the museum in great shape. I’m open to your ideas… thoughts to help me and anyone else reading learn more ways to honor those teammates and prove it in our actions.

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

Shelly Binkley (she/her) — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:00:36 GMT

Hello! I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of the Townhall on Burnout happening next week.

We'll continue the conversation started by this thread about what other people and their organizations are doing to combat burnout in the workplace.

There are two meeting days/times to choose from:

Thank you all again for getting this important conversation started!

RE: Burnout Log

Shelly Binkley (she/her) — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 16:53:49 GMT

Hey Jennifer, I wanted to make sure you knew about the upcoming Townhall on Burnout next week. We're going to have an open discussion about what other people and their organizations are doing to combat burnout in the workplace, so maybe someone will mention the Burnout Log again. There are two meeting days/times to choose from:

Translation options for website?

Jean Leonard — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 14:39:50 GMT

Hello! This is really not a Tessitura-related question, but hoping to get some ideas from the hive mind here.

We're in the middle of a website redesign, and would really like to offer a translation option. Spanish is a strong second language in our area, but certainly not the only one, so I'd like to find a multi-language option. Budget-wise, we need to be looking at a plugin option, rather than a full translation service.

I recognize that Google Translate isn't perfect, but is it the best option out there? If not, what do you recommend we consider?

Thank you!

Town Hall Burnouts

Nicki LeGrand — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 19:27:37 GMT

Hi everyone!

I wanted to make sure you're all aware of the upcoming town halls that the Neurodiversity & Mental Wellness community group is hosting later this month.

There are 2 virtual town halls that will focus on burnout. These will be opportunities for folks to talk informally about burnout in the workplace, and to listen and share what strategies and options people have taken to support themselves and their teams. More details below.

Town hall 1: Wednesday, 20 March at 3pm GMT | 11am EDT | 8am PDT

Town hall 2: Friday, 22 March at 1pm AEDT (7pm PDT on 21 March)

Please feel free to register and attend, if you're interested.

Cheers!!

Inclusive Customer Service Training Videos for Window Ticket Sales/Front of House Staff

Audrey Adams — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 20:25:37 GMT

Hi all!

This is my first post of all Tess forums, so I am excited to hear responses in the Tessitura community! We are looking to add a customer service training video with all of our ticket sales associates. Is there a customer service training video that any of your organizations use that are inclusive, relative, and interesting for people to stay present while in training, but also work well within in ticketing situations (as we know can be quite stressful at times). Thanks in advance for your input!

RE: Inclusive Customer Service Training Videos for Window Ticket Sales/Front of House Staff

shenette Swann — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:50:42 GMT

Hi! I do not have a customer service video that focus strongly on inclusion, so I look forward to seeing the answers! We do put a strong emphasis on inclusive training, however.

I will say that webjunction.org offers various training and we used the De-esculation training at Marbles Kids Museum, NC. I thought it was helpful. For my team, I taught a separate training on Inclusive language. I found that it was more helpful to spend a significant amount of time on understanding phrases, words to avoid, and inclusive language that helps everyone feel seen, valued and welcomed. This was a deep dive discussion and training covering language and terminology for various cultures, sensitivity training for queer communities, terminology and language to use/not use for our teammates and guests with disabilities and the importance of understanding microaggressions. Again, this was a completely different training than customer service. Meeting in person also allowed space for curiosity and questions and discussion. Hope this helps some. If you want more info about how we do our in-person trainings, you can message me at sswann@marbleskidsmuseum.org

RE: Burnout Log

Jennifer Almgreen — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 21:14:57 GMT

Appreciate you looking into it.

RE: Burnout Log

Jennifer Almgreen — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 21:14:45 GMT

No, I did double check in case I had forgotten it was there but there's no mention of it. I'm trying to recall what had spurred the conversation but it was in reference to another discussion.

You're invited! Tessitura Affinity Groups virtual open house

Meredith Woolard (she/her) — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:27:31 GMT

Please join us for a Tessitura Affinity Groups virtual open house
Wednesday, February 21 at 4:30pm GMT |11:30am EST | 8:30am PST

During this virtual open house, we’ll hear from the Community Chairs of our five Tessitura affinity groups: LGBTQIA+, Neurodiversity & Mental Wellness, People of Color, People with Disabilities and Women in Tech. They'll share more about their group’s mission, activities and the inclusive space they foster.

Learn how you can connect with other Tessitura members from similar backgrounds, discover shared interests and find your community within our welcoming affinity groups.

Register in advance

RE: Burnout Log

Greg Garcia — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 20:02:51 GMT

Jennifer Almgreen Was this the post?
community.tessitura.com/.../tips-for-preventing-burnout-in-your-guest-facing-and-guest-engaging-teammates

Applications are open for Tessitura's Career Accelerator program

Jessica Johnson — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 23:37:29 GMT

Hello all! Applications are now open for the spring 2024 North American session of our Career Accelerator program. We welcome you to help us spread the word by sharing with your community, school, or professional networks. Please read on for details, and let us know if you have any questions.

***

Tessitura offers a ten-week Career Accelerator program with the long-term goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the business of arts and culture. In addition to hands-on experience using Tessitura’s CRM platform, participants will join a community of colleagues and mentors providing support and professional networking, and secure access to a library of training materials to expand their knowledge of Tessitura.

Our spring session, which is open by application only, will run from February 19 – April 26, 2024 and is offered free of charge. A selection committee of Tessitura staff will select up to 24 participants from among the submitted applications.

To be eligible for this program, applicants must:

Be located in North America
Be at least 18 years of age
Identify as a member of a racial or ethnic group that has been historically excluded from the arts and culture sector
Be interested in beginning or accelerating a career in the business of arts and culture
Be able to commit up to three hours per week during the program for self-paced online learning, group conversations, and small group mentoring sessions

We are accepting applications now through Sunday, January 21.

Complete information and the program application can be found here: https://www.tessituranetwork.com/Support/Training/Career-Accelerator-NA

Including frontline staff in an Audience Behaviour campaign

Robin Hancox — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 09:06:07 GMT

Hello lovely fellow Tessiturians.

This month through our two venues in Southampton, England - Mayflower Theatre and MAST Mayflower Studios, we launched a campaign to combat poor audience behaviour.

The idea for this new campaign was born after seeing an uptick in audience behaviour issues in other venues across the country. We brought together an internal working group which included representatives from across the organisation, including Front of House staff, artistic and executive leadership and our marketing team. We decided to lead with images of our real staff members with messaging around behaviour to bring back the human face to the campaign. We wanted to take a proactive initiative to remind our customers of the friendly faces of our organisation, what they do, and most importantly, that they’re human and doing their best to ensure that all customers have the most enjoyable experience possible. The campaign runs with two taglines "See the show - don't be the show" and "There's no excuse for abuse" Alongside a PR launch, and full media campaign, the images are being used on social media, pre-visit emails, physical posters around the building and on digital screens. We even have new badges containing the taglines for all staff to wear. We have had so much positive feedback from our teams following the launch and they feel empowered by being involved in the campaign.

Here is a link to the campaign images:

Microsoft Word - Document1 (mayflower.org.uk)

I hope this helps and provides some useful ideas.

RE: Including frontline staff in an Audience Behaviour campaign

Gill Tasker (she/her) — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 11:39:24 GMT

Hi Robin Hancox thanks for this information on your fantastic campaign. If you were comfortable doing so, it might be an idea to cross-post to the South West England & Wales community group as well? I'm sure members there would be interested to hear about it too.

- Gill Tasker, Community Manager

TLCC Gateshead 2024 - Diversity Scholarships: Applications due by COB Thursday 16th November

Gill Tasker (she/her) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 12:15:43 GMT

As Community Manager at Tessitura, I'm highlighting that the scholarship application period for TLCC Gateshead (5-6 March 2024) is now open!

Please help us spread word and pass this on to any members of your team who may be interested.

This includes three Diversity scholarship opportunities. The scholarship covers the full conference registration fee, but awardees will be responsible for their own travel expenses and lodging.

Applications coupled with letters of recommendation are due by COB this Thursday 16th November - more details regarding eligibility and online application links can be found on our website here.

If you have any questions please email scholarships@tessituranetwork.com.

Many thanks - we look forward to receiving your applications!

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

Janis Treiber — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 16:28:05 GMT

Thank you so much, Shenette! This is such an important conversaion and topic. I am glad to know that an organization so close to the North Carolina Museum of Art is addressing it, as well. Please also feel free to reach out to me at janis.treiber@ncdcr.gov to get together and chat in person. Our Visitor and Retail Experience Team just finished reading and discussing, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. It is an excellent read and catalyst for growing and supporting the need for universal hospitality and support for staff sharing it on a daily basis. Love to chat more!

Janis Treiber

Director of Visitor and Retail Experience

NCMA

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

shenette Swann — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 19:45:34 GMT

So many great nuggets in this response! Thank you so much, Olivia!

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

Heath Wilder — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 13:59:00 GMT

HI Shenette,

This is wonderful to see. Training and support in dealing with conflict and aggression is critically important for front facing staff and also important internally. In our Safety Managment Group we have been organising training and adapting risk logs with regards to fatigue, burnout and aggression on an organisational level. My role includes advocating for Front of House, Box Office, Ticketing Systems, Analytics and Insights and Database teams and there is a lot of overwork, stress and customer negotiation in that team. One of our best active strategies for managing burnout has been to increase support between teams and adjust labour.

In the Box Office and Front of House having empowered managers that can pick up and swap out the load when needed. And an acknowledgment of work done and debriefing incidents. We have an Employee Assistance Program but that doesn't take that place of internal support and care over a longer period. We regularly have training on Conflict Resolution for our Customer facing staff and the focus varies. As we have little staff churn in our FoH team in the last 12 months our training included training on dealing with intoxication. This was also built into business strategy for the commercial operations and venues team when looking at business growth.

If you didn't attend TLCC Orlando this year or missed the talk, I recommend checking out Caleb Roman and Corey Smiths Upgrade your customer service toolkit: Addressing customer rage and using CSIs for patron service management talk.

For the Manager/Exec there are a few things that I've seen that contribute to burnout and can be avoided - the biggest one is someone else's emergency and in so many cases the other party has known this is coming for some time. Having a planned roadmap of upcoming activity can give you a good idea of what overhead you have in your team for taking on additional work. Sales campaigns, build and upgrade testing, training and maintenance are all items that should be predicable. Flex for cancelled shows, illness and injury, and tactical opportunities are things it's worth building a buffer around. Once you have your own roadmap planned as best you can - requesting early requests from the other the teams will give you a feel for what is coming your way. However, one of the most important pieces of armour for your team is protecting turnaround times. I want to help people out as much as anyone, but it needs to be clear what the turnaround time will be. If someone has emergency, other things need to get bumped. Puling an all-nighter to get it ahead will lead to overtime being all the time. If you think that it's very hard to push back on requests from Senior management, you are right. With all good project teams, you need your senior manager (Director) to act as sponsor your team and protect your needs.

Box office can often work under resourced when big events or cancellations hit or in times of illness. Getting through that needs to be acknowledged (by the executive especially) and doing a quick debrief into was anything avoidable. Feedback/debrief sessions are really helpful. They add agency to the team and allow them to be empowered in constructive ways.

The US Surgeon Generals Framework for Workplace wellbeing is a great piece for guidance and speaks of a lot of the above.

The Arts Wellbeing Collectives new Work Well- Guide is a great guide to starting down this path and the conversations to have.

The Black Dog Institute has a good worksheet for self-care.

Neurodivergent burnout is a big and important topic, and different to commonly regarded Workplace Burnout and has different causes, manifestations and recovery.Shelly Binkley (she/her) and I wrote a few articles on it here with some good links. The best starting point for reducing ND burnout is creating a sensory supportive space. Also reducing cognitive load by making instructions clear and simple. Burnout tends to leave folks with limited executive functioning and high distractibility. Plus clarity is just good practice.

In recovering from all kinds of burnout, contact with a community you identify with is key. When we are considering the diversity of our staff groups like ERGs can be very helpful. On the way back from TLCC this year I was fortunate enough to swing by DCs Kennedy Center and talk to the wonderful Barbara Polk and team on their work on employee support and the implementation of their ERGs. There is a little bit in the TLCC recording here. Tessitura have virtual affinity groups as well that meet up regularly.

Thank you for this topic. Beau and Caryl and I got to do our presentation a week ago at another conference so it's front of mind at the moment.

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

Jennifer Almgreen — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 21:47:51 GMT

Hi Shenette,

So good to meet you virtually. I work with Roundabout Theatre Company in our Audience Services Department and our additional brand Criterion Ticketing. This is something our management team is very passionate about and I'm happy to share about what we've done to combat this.

A big addition was our company crafted an Audience Agreement that is shared in all of our pre-trip emails, along with being posted in our Ticketing Polices on our website. They also ensure that this is published at various areas of our venues for review and so our house staff can direct our guests to, when engaging.

Additionally our Audience Services Department created its own Culture Statement that we shared with our colleagues internally. This shared our department's values and how we intend to interact with patrons that challenge said values. We shared it with the company as a way to affirm our intentions but also empower the other departments that engage with our audiences that their practices would be in line with our overall service. It included not only our ethos about customers, but also how we intended to support our staff and their identifies.

Also our Call Center Manager team adapted materials we'd received in our DEAI sessions regarding Dismantling Microaggressions, and focused it on when customers were committing the microaggressions against our phone and box office representatives. We shared the materials along with hosting training sessions to discuss how to interrupt these moments and call in the actions. This in particular empowered our reps to address behavior with customers rather than feeling like they had to accept it and find ways afterwards to manage the after effects. And our managers ensure that they are there not only to support the staff if needed with the customers, but also ensuring that our staff have the resources they need for any after care. This sometimes means making sure other departments understand this might look like having a coloring book at their desk, knitting, or needing to step away for extended periods of time. We're always challenging the concept of "professionalism" and interrogating if certain accepted behaviors are actually necessary to the role.

The work continues off of this and we're actually in the process of another Well Being check in with our staff about the resources they're looking for in their roles. Last year we scheduled conference room times and meetings, but when the group came in we played board games while we hosted discussions about the workflow and challenges in the department. This year we're starting with a survey first to find the topics to target and then we'll schedule some individualized sessions from there. But finding ways to not make it feel like it's an interrogation and ensuring people do feel like they can be vulnerable in their feedback.

RE: Tips for preventing burnout in your guest facing and guest engaging teammates.

Olivia Bowman — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 05:25:27 GMT

Hi Shenette, Clumsy Conversations sound awesome! I'd love to hear more about how you structure these.

Some things that we do at Mona in Hobart (a large and very complex building with some confronting artwork that can be very challenging for some visitors) are:

We have staff training (in person and online) that they're paid to attend. For example:

-A session that focussed on emotional intelligence and things like amygdala hijack, which detailed how people's brains work and therefore how they behave when they're in a threat state. It has helped to remind our staff that they're not personally responsible for someone's upset, some skills to practice if they are confronted by someone with a complaint or upset (e.g. CARP), and understanding that the staff member isn't a robot and may get upset themselves, and that this is understandable and valid. Learning about the amygdala hijack, threat state, etc was empowering for team members who learned that this isn't about them doing anything wrong.

-We use a platform called EdApp for skills development and introducing staff to new roles and ideas. Staff members do this training outside of work hours, so they are paid for the time it takes them to do this training. It's another way of demonstrating our commitment to their learning and engagement.

In cases where we have had difficult customer interactions (e.g. I had a panic attack one day thanks to a creepy man coming up to me and talking directly into my ear - it was awful), our supervisors and managers have always had our backs. In that situation, I was able to get off the floor, no questions asked. I was replaced in my position and not forced to return to the floor. My supervisors went looking for the man with the intention of removing him from the museum.

We have several neurodiverse staff members who know they can step away if they're overstimulated, need to decompress, etc., and they'll be supported. This culture of support has benefited the team greatly.

I used to train new staff and a few things I'd always say, to ensure our staff felt confident and supported, were:

-People are not angry with you; they're being angry in your general direction because you're a staff member. You're wearing the uniform. You probably did nothing wrong and you're just there at a point that they've reached their limit. This is about them, not you. You don't need to take it on board. - This one is especially relevant for younger women, who have been socialised that everyone's upset is their problem to fix, and often feel personally attacked. This isn't helped by larger, older men who use their physicality and loud voices to try to intimidate (they often pick the smallest person in the room).

-You are the expert in your workplace" - empowering team members that they know their stuff and can be confident communicating with visitors. We also talk about how everyone's reaction is as valid as the next person's, and that not everyone who visits us woke up in their own bed this morning, so they probably already felt discombobulated before they even arrived

These are all part of our culture of looking after each other in what can be a very tricky environment to work - a place that pushes buttons and challenges people, who don't always respond well; a place that can get very crowded, loud and overwhelming. We look after each other first, so we can look after our visitors. I have worked at Mona for ten years and it has just always been like this! One other thing we do is celebrate successes - supervisors read out positive feedback and devices in our morning briefings.

I might have strayed off topic a bit there but I hope this is useful!

RE: Service animals vs comfort animals policy

Laura Kirk — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 20:53:39 GMT

Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. We are solid on our Service Animals policy but always happy for that confirmation from others, too. :) Comfort animals' topic is so tricky and I think that what I've been finding is that there truly isn't much guidance on it for organizations that would like to allow them in. I think the best way forward is to let our organization decide and be very clear about what we allow on our website, etc so folks can know in advance.